[WikiEN-l] Re: Writing about sexual topics responsibly is not censorship

Tue Feb 15 14:57:09 UTC 2005

On Tue, Feb 15, 2005 at 03:42:50PM +0800, John Lee wrote:
> I strongly disagree. This is the web, yes, but there are quite a number 
> of people who just want to be able to browse and read about sexual 
> topics without being exposed to outrageous photographs "in your face". 

There are, likewise, quite a number of people who want to read about
medical topics without being exposed to photographs of internal organs
"in your face".

There are probably people who want to read about [[anti-Semitism]]
without being exposed to photographs of Ku Klux Klansmen and Nazi
propaganda "in your face".

On the other hand, there are people who want to hit the "Random page"
button and not get a biography of a porn star like [[Andrea Spinks]] or
a frank and accurate description of the [[Kama Sutra]], even if it
doesn't have any nekkid pixx0r.  And there are others who are quite
severely offended by the fact that the text of our articles [[Jesus]] or
[[Mohammed]] or [[homeopathy]] doesn't parrot their precise view of
these.

The idea that sexual topics, or sexually accurate images, are *uniquely*
risky or likely to offend is not particularly close to being accurate.
There is no bright-line distinction between "offense" and "POV", since
so many people are offended by seeing or reading about things or views
whose existence they object to.

If we would seek the approval of Mrs. Grundy or her pastor Rev.
Bookburner, simply submitting to their views about images will not
suffice.  We would need to submit to their views about our text, too ...
because it really isn't dirty images they want to destroy, but rather
dirty thoughts and the dirty people who think them.

> There is minimal harm done in linking or having a tiny thumbnail linking 
> to the larger image. Appropriate encyclopedic images should be kept, but 
> should not be thrust in our readers' faces. It's just plain common 
> sense. It's the same reason we don't directly link to Goatse; we err on 
> the side of caution. The same applies here.

Well ... actually ... we *do* link to [[Goatse.cx]], or rather, to a
number of mirrors of that site, since it is no longer up.  We don't have
the image inline.

I, for one, am much more offended by trolling -- that is, the deliberate
disruption of a worthwhile discourse -- than I am by pictures of penises
or anuses.  Everyone has an anus, and about half of us have penises.

> There's a dimension I feel everyone in this debate has been missing. It 
> doesn't matter that the image is harmless or that a thumbnail hurts 
> nobody or that censorship is wrong or that most of us aren't really 
> offended. What matters is what our readers think. Like it or not, our 
> readers are still squeemish about these things.

I'm squeamish about anything that reeks of censorship, myself.  It makes
me feel all icky and dirty inside to recall that there are so very many
human beings who would like to put me in jail (or worse) because I
rather enjoy a great number of things that they disapprove of.

> Without editors, Wikipedia is nothing. Without readers, Wikipedia is 
> nothing. We, editors, cannot impose our opinions on the readers. And a 
> substantial amount of our readers are offended by inline images of a man 
> sucking his dick. It's simple as that. It doesn't matter *why* they're 
> offended; nothing we say can change their minds. They'll just leave, 
> with probably a bad thing or two to say the next time they hear the word 
> "Wikipedia".

Plenty of people already have bad things to say about Wikipedia without
the nekkid pixx0r, too.  We're an arm of the atheist Zionist capitalist
anti-American Marxist evolutionist American-centric libertarian Democrat
conspiracy against the white race -- you've got to expect we'll take
some heat.

> Remember, our image is integral as well. No matter how we try to 
> convince people, the damage has been done if we allow seriously 
> offensive images to be displayed inline.

Linking to them, rather than keeping them inline, does precious little
to defuse the wrath of the self-righteous.  Instead of being an archive
of Satan's favorite images, we then become a Web directory of Satan's
favorite images.

> I think this dispute marks a critical turning point in our history - 
> will the readers' or editors' interests triumph?  It's interesting here, 
> because the editors are under no obligation to continue work, and there 
> is substantial overlap between readers and editors. Our case is unique, 
> and the only reason the editors' interests have held out so long is 
> because until now, most readers have also been editors. That is no 
> longer the case. Wikipedia is reaching for a broader audience everyday, 
> and we must cater to this audience which is considerably more 
> conservative and technology-averse than our traditional editors.

I disagree.  In order to continue Wikipedia's success we need to keep
doing what has worked so far.

Trying to reach out to the censorious by dropping the nekkid pixx0r is a
waste of time.  They *don't care* if we have nekkid pixx0r or not; our
evil is obvious in that we don't parrot their party line about whatever
hot-button issue they fuss about.

> This image dispute is not the only example of readers versus editors; 
> just look at the efforts to move editor-only templates to the talk pages.

It seems to me to be rather destructive to the discourse to pretend that
your views on images or templates are the side of "the readers" and that
those who disagree with you are, therefore, against "the readers".

-- 
Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger at whoi.edu>